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Friday, December 23, 2011

Sharia Law Hurts Muslim Immigrants

I just read a really good article. Islam and "Islamophobia" - a little manifesto, by Russell Blackford, talks about being on the left AND being against islamic laws. I hope a few certain people from YouTube take a look at it.

I've been seeing lately how people I know on YouTube react when I speak against inhumane practices/behaviours that are caused by islamic law. They think (without thinking) that it means I am right wing or racist or 'islamophobic'. People on the left usually avoid speaking out for no better reason than because the right has hijacked the cause and they don't want to be seen agreeing on anything. Remember that old 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' saying? Don't make that mistake.

Just because the right hates islamic sharia law for the wrong reasons sometimes, does not mean that the left has to do the opposite by embracing/tolerating attempts to have sharia courts set up in our otherwise secular countries. The koranic/hadith based sharia laws are unjust and hurt people.

Muslim immigrants are better served by secular laws, which protect them from the horrific practices of the countries that they have escaped from; forced marriage, mutilation, half-worth in court if female, beatings and rapes of wives condoned, unequal inheritances, etc.

Let's take the cause back from the right. Why bother? Well, because the right does not look out for the interest of muslim immigrants who are trying to escape the tyranny of their previous home, for one thing. Only the left will be able to treat them as humans, humans fully deserving of protection via our secular laws. The right fails in that department, wrongly hating the muslim themselves along with the laws. The right doesn't care if the muslims immigrated in order to get away from sharia, they just blame them for bringing it here, mixing the freedom-appreciating ones up with the political-islamist ones who really WOULD be quite happy to bring in sharia as a dual legal system.

The left should be helping to protect immigrants from being coerced (by religious family members and/or local clerics) into sharia courts, and fight against the dual legal system. Those religious laws are especially harmful to women and children. Sharia courts prevent them from having the full rights and protections of our secular laws, which are much more just and humane than the barbaric rules of warring, slave-owning people from around 700 years ago.

Democratic, 'western', secular law isn't perfect yet, but it's fairer, more civilized, and more advanced, than any religion-based set of laws. Also, it can keep getting better, whereas religious laws are seen as already perfect (especially in islam) and they are very reluctant to improve.